


Stepping In

by Mazarin221b



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Epiphanies, M/M, Post ep 5, Romance, Victor POV, Victor is in Love, Yuri is in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 00:46:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10820199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazarin221b/pseuds/Mazarin221b
Summary: “Were you skating my program?” Yuri says into the echoing silence, and Victor whips around, startled. How long has he been there?They always could communicate better through skating than anything else.





	Stepping In

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! *waves* I'm really new to this fandom, and as with all my new fandoms I start out writing little character sketches like this one to warm myself up for bigger things. I've really fallen in love with this show and one person in particular has been so generous and welcoming to me. Her_Nerdiness didn't actually beta this work (any screwups are on me) but she did look it over and push me in a better direction with the theme, so thank you.
> 
> Hit me up on twitter or tumblr, I'm Mazarin221b in those spaces, too.

For as long as he could remember, Victor found calm serenity in skating alone.

In this, at least, he and Yuri are alike.

The faint sursurrus of his skates echo from the walls and bounce between the boards, amplifying and giving voice to the movements of his body.  It’s a rare thing to be alone, a luxury when one was skating on a team as large as Russia’s. But here, in the quiet stillness of early morning in Hasetsu, Victor can trace the shadow pattern of the weak fall sunrise streaming through the windows of the Ice Castle with quiet precision, his blades on ice more pristine and smooth than he’d ever expected to find it in this tiny costal town.

Indeed, very little has been as he expected.

Victor puts in his headphones and selects an album before he pockets his phone and starts really warming up, simple edgework and patterns to wake up his muscles.  He’s got two more days to help Yuri find his footing for the Cup of China. He’s almost there, Victor can see the breakthrough hovering on the edge of his blade. Something, though, is holding him back. Something more than a lack of confidence, something held tightly, something buried so deep Victor isn’t sure he’ll ever prise it out into the open.

He must, though. Yuri keeps surprising him, challenging him, and his expectations of Victor are high. He can’t fail in this, fail in understanding what Yuri needs to push him toward the greatness Victor knows is there, waiting to be unleashed.

The cool air is refreshing against his face as he begins a slow loop around the rink. The ice is an old friend, a home, a place of comfort, and as Victor builds up speed for a first jump – a double toe loop, let’s not get fancy this early in the morning – he lands cleanly and wonders how it can be so unforgiving to Yuri, who loves it so much.

The first song on his playlist finishes and the second begins, but instead of the Secret Garden Nocturne, as he expected, it’s Yuri’s free program music.

Yuri on Ice.

Victor edges to a quick stop and pulls his phone out to cancel the shuffle, but as the piano fills his ears, his mind is immediately filled with visions of Yuri in his beautiful costume, poised and gorgeous and vulnerable.  Victor closes his eyes and almost unconsciously mirrors the opening pose, hands lifting in front of his body in a plea to the heavens.

He pulls them down immediately. He’s skated this with Yuri any number of times, probably hundreds of times. But this feels wrong somehow, an invasion. Yuri has taken over his program, and it _is_ his program, earned through sweat and tears, bruises and blood.  Victor lost ownership of the choreography they’d built weeks ago, as soon as Yuri had stepped onto the ice for the block championships.  It’s his, his life and his labor of love, and Victor really has very little rights to it, now.

_But it is about Yuri’s life_ , a tiny voice whispers. His life in skating, his life in Hasetsu, his hopes and dreams and fears.  Yuri is the most honest on the ice. He’s his most authentic self. And now that Victor thinks of it, what better way to determine what might be eating at his lovely student and friend than to step into his skates for a moment?

Checking around to be certain there were no triplicate little spies lurking about, Victor pockets his phone and picks up where the music is still in the opening arpeggios.  There’s hope in the beginning, even in the quiet solitude Yuri felt when he thought he was on his own. Victor runs through the looping passes, meditating. This can’t be what’s bothering him now, can it? On the whole, Victor thinks not.

The music shifts downward toward Victor’s chaotic entrance, throwing everything into confusion and disharmony as they fight through the difficulties they’ve had learning to mesh, to work together. Victor leaps into a triple salchow and then the spin, the intensity ramping up higher and higher into a triple loop which he lands easily, gracefully, the shock of hitting the ice absorbed by decades of training and muscle development. 

And then, ah yes, then. The part Yuri loves most, the music dropping away from chaos and into a single moment of realization, when Yuri knows what he’s feeling is love, true love from his friends, his family, and…Victor.  A realization that he’s part of something larger than himself. From relying on solitude and self-control to learning to be more open, more present. More willing to accept the love everyone has for him, every day.

Again, they’re more alike than it would first appear.

 Victor leans back into a spread eagle which transitions to an Ina Bauer and really listens to what Yuri is saying, tries to concentrate on the transition as dual, harmonious arpeggios pick up again and the routine leaps forward in difficulty; joy and hope and yes, love, exploding from the cut of his blades as he twists across the ice, and as Victor lands one last quad for the sheer joy of it he pulls it all together and has a flash of realization so profound he stops the music and stands stock still in shock.

Yuri isn’t just feeling love from others. He’s giving it, too. He’s not just loving, he’s _in love._

He’s in love with Victor.

“Were you skating my program?” Yuri says into the echoing silence, and Victor whips around, startled. How long has he been there?

“Yuri! Good morning! Yes, I was working through a few ideas for the jumps, I thought perhaps four quads is still too many in the second half but—“ he prattles on and watches as Yuri, rumpled and adorably sleepy, rolls his eyes and sits down to put on his skates.

“Yes, yes, you’ve said that before, but I don’t like the feel of a quad in the first half, it messes up the timing of the routine,“ Yuri responds and pushes out to do a few warm up laps around the rink. He looks better than he ever has, lean and muscled, the line of his body graceful and strong, and Victor can’t help but grin at him as he passes. Yuri smiles, a bit confused, no doubt, at Victor looking at him like an idiot first thing in the morning, and a blush pinks his cheeks.  Victor can’t help but keep staring as he skates by and tries to not get caught watching Yuri’s superb backside.

_Yes_ , Victor thinks, as he watches Yuri work his muscles and throw little glances Victor’s way every so often, _he’s in love with me. And I…_

Yuri plants his toe pick and launches into a double loop, landing cleanly, almost carelessly, and flashes a grin at Victor when he realizes Victor was watching him.

Victor flew halfway across the world to answer the pull he felt when he watched Yuri skate his routine. He’s drawn to Yuri, drawn to his quiet determination and graceful bearing. Yuri has admitted how he’s idolized Victor his entire life. Innocent at first, but now the tension when they’re alone is drawing so taut that something must break.  And given Yuri’s last distracted skate, Victor thinks the crack must come soon.

And as Yuri skates over and shyly but playfully tugs one of Victor’s Bluetooth earbuds out to use for himself —“You’ve already got it cued up, you see,” he says— Victor thinks it might be up to him to start the earthquake.  A surprise, something Yuri would never expect, to shake his foundations to dust and build them anew.

Ah, yes. He knows what Yuri needs to rattle this stalemate they’ve managed to create, because he needs the same. Needs to test what they’ve become, to tell Yuri how happy he is here with him. To open his heart and prise out his own fears, his own hopes, his own life and lay it out in the open for Yuri’s judgment, just as Yuri has with his. Not now, though. Not two days before the competition, when he looks so relaxed and happy and confident as he throws himself into a triple lutz that has more height than is fair for this early in the morning. But later, afterward, that would be the time to show him what he’s come to mean to Victor’s life. To his future.

 Because as he watches Yuri pick up his routine where Victor left off and practice the final pose of his free skate, a graceful lift of arm of gratitude and affection, Victor realizes with a pang in his heart that he’s in love, too.

 

 

 


End file.
